Here’s Moscow’s Emperor of Epistemology Douglas Wilson today on Blog and Mablog, referring to a question from last night’s televised Faux News debate before an Iowa presidential straw poll:
“At the Republican debate last night, (Michelle) Bachmann was asked if she was a submissive wife. She deflected the question, and answered in terms of respect, which is part of the right answer, but it is not the full answer. The traditional marriage vow — which traditionalists are supposed to agree with, remember — includes the vow to obey. This goes well beyond “think highly of in mutually affirming ways.” All obedience should be respectful, of course, and true respect will result in obedience, but they are still not the same thing.” (Blog and Mablog, August 12, 2011)
True respect for the Word will result in obedience to it, and Wilson’s words here, yet again, are still not the same thing — evincing, as they do, a greater respect for marital hierarchy than for coherent Scriptural exegesis.
Yes, the young ladies of Christ Church, Trinity Reformed, and NSA, when married by Wilson, promise to obey their husbands — just because women have, however wrongly, promised to do that for years. “Traditional marriage vows” may extract only from the bride a promise to obey her husband, although my September 1984 traditional wedding vows, being based on Scripture, didn’t.
And that’s the point: Traditionalists — complementarians, hierarchialists, patriarchs — have elevated their traditional views on strongly-defined, separate gender roles and functions to the status of Scripture, a practice I’m quite sure they’d decry if done elsewhere by “liberals,” “feminists,” and “ecumenicalists.” There is no Biblical precedent, but very many cultural precedents, for wives to obey their husbands. Included in marriage vows, the admonition to “obey” is an immediate, incontrovertible and public announcement that Ephesians 5:22 (“wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord”) and not the preceding verse 21 (“Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ),” nor the entire message of the New Testament Gospel, will be the framework for the marriage. That’s simply wrong, no matter how stunning the table decorations.
Even a non-seminarian can grasp that in Ephesians 5:21-28, mutual submission (“subordination” in the New American Bible, which makes the point in stronger language) sets the stage for emphasis on a husband’s love and a wife’s submission — according to the areas in which culture or circumstance might make each charge particularly difficult for one spouse or the other. (The cult of Artemis, for example, elevated women at the expense of the denigration of men, which likely explains Paul’s emphasis here on wifely submission; certainly, the first-century Jewish or pagan man wasn’t surrounded by examples of profoundly intimate love for his wife). Here, Paul sets the stage — mutual submission, everybody! — and then emphasizes specific difficulties, without doing away with the virtue not specifically mentioned.
Ignoring the context-setting verse 21 and skipping to vv. 22 and 25 allows Wilson, et al, to cling to his hierarchical view of marriage. He is, of course, a Biblical literalist, and so I’m assuming that men who don’t submit to their wives, yet love them, have his approval, as do — follow the logic here — the wives who submit with nary a trace of love to motivate it. Either v. 21 — “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ” — is true and not controverted by the following text, or, if it’s jettisoned, vv. 22 and 25 then command wives only to submit, not love, and men only to love, not submit. I imagine that a teacher of logic and rhetoric would see my argument, and I trust that any pastor, witnessing such a farcical marriage, would hike up his khakis and run back to v. 21. But then, I’m a trusting gal, and I’ve been disappointed a lot.
Mutual submission is not top-down authority. It’s not “submission” from a status of expected, permanent subjugation, nor is it limited to marriage. Submission is, from a position of strength and security, a voluntary decision to put another first — period. It’s every bit as much a command for husbands as it is for wives, for men as it is for women, for clergy as it is for laypeople. If the New Testament is replete with examples of cultural mores that limit and even degrade women being shattered by the Word and example of Christ Jesus — and, Rob, it is — the true “Biblical literalist” will take the verse that introduces an argument and consider the following verses in its light. That’s basic hermeneutics, however much it makes male supremacists in the Church squirm.
The fact is that the Bible nowhere commands women to “obey” their husbands; the Pauline letters do not use the Greek word for “obey as unto one in authority over” when discussing submission. The only example of God telling a spouse to “obey” the other partner involves Abraham’s charge to obey Sarah. None of us would develop a once-and-for-all doctrine from that account, and the thoughtful among us — and I assume there still are the “thoughtful” among us in Moscow — would not glean from Scripture the necessity of a Godly wife “obeying” her husband. That’s eisegesis — reading into the Word what you’d like. In performing weddings, Wilson is, sadly, free to monkey with Scripture to his and his audience’s liking, but that doesn’t make his admonition to wives Biblical. It does, however, make it pretty damned convenient in keeping questioning, unhappy, victimized and ecclesiastically-dissatisfied women quiet, and the unrelenting influence Wilson exercises over his flock is easier to sustain if half of them believe they have no real voice.
“Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey . . . ” (Romans 6:16)
Mature, Godly Christian marriages are a triangle of mutuality — two points, equally positioned lower than the point wherein is pictured the One they obey and drawing closer to each other as they draw closer to the Almighty. There is no room for top-down power arrangements and gender-restricted “roles and function,” only for robust and plentiful submission, one to the other, in marriage and in every single other relationship in which the Christian lives. Submission? I’m all for it — I’d like to see more of it! But I don’t want to see, and I believe our God doesn’t, either, a worldy form of power and control pushed off on the Church by those who cling to the privileges they garner from it.
That, I won’t submit to. And neither should you.